Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday September 21, 2012 @04:27PM
from the turnabout-is-fair-play dept.

New submitter who_stole_my_kidneys writes "Evidence suggests the Iranian government is behind cyberattacks this week that have targeted the websites of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. The attacks are described by one source, a former U.S. official, as being 'significant and ongoing,' and looking to cause 'functional and significant damage.' Another source suggested the attacks were in response to U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks."

...except that we are the ones who created that mess. Remember, we overthrew the Iranian government, then they overthrew the dictatorship we created, then created their own rights-abusing government which we gave weapons to. I guess instead of apologizing to barbarians, we arm them.

especially when they believe their deity tells them that women are not equal to men, and shouldn't vote, or drive, learn to read, or show their face in public. i'm sick of bleeding hearts defending these muslim assholes. i haven't heard many stories of people from other faiths being so mean to their own mothers, sisters, daughters, wives.

How about not doing things that need to be apologized for, to begin with?

First of all, "we", the U.S., didn't do anything. That low budget movie was done by an individual, a man (an Egyptian emigre) with a personal "ax" to grind. He made his movie fully aware it would be controversial. This great country allows anyone, even bozos, to freedom of expression.

To the indoctrinated Muslim, their religion defines them as a people, so of course the movie fanned the flames of unrest. But as for America, WE did nothing wrong, and have no reason to apologize. The Muslim world needs to examine their own society, and come to a resolution concerning their own behavior.

You know the US has had some countries it has had a beef with in the past. The UK, Germany, Japan, and so on. You might want to examine their reaction, their relations these days.

There is something to be said for "forgive and forget" rather than holding a grudge until the end of eternity.

For that matter, were the US to apply the same logic they'd have plenty of reason to hold a grudge forever against Iran. The embassy hostage situation would be a good example. A gross violation of international and US law,

In fact, the British attacked the US in 1812, and did not truly become our allies until the 20th century -- generations after the revolution. We helped to establish democratic governments in Germany and Japan.

When it came to Iran, we went with the opposite approach: the elimination of democracy in favor of authoritarian dictatorship. The Iranians did not rebel against their democratic government, they rebelled against a tyrant who had US backing. There is a world of difference between what happened in Iran and what happened in Germany or Japan.

There is something to be said for "forgive and forget" rather than holding a grudge until the end of eternity.

Chances are that the Iranians would have forgotten their anger, if we did not keep angering them. After they overthrew the dictatorship we created (sadly, only to establish another tyranny), we started giving the Iraqis weapons to kill Iranians with. Then in secret, we also gave Iranian weapons to kill Iraqis with, basically escalating a war that resulted in many dead Arabs and Persians. We also have an embargo on Iran, we have sent numerous, sophisticated, and destructive malware packages to them (and have written those to target their computer systems) and we keep calling them our enemy. It is not as though they are still getting back at us for everything that happened 60 years ago; we just won't leave them alone.

For that matter, were the US to apply the same logic they'd have plenty of reason to hold a grudge forever against Iran

Which is basically what we are doing -- as I said, we are not leaving them alone, we are actively working against Iran. We never had a good reason to get involved with Iran in the first place, and we keep worsening the situation.

try to make progress

Let's start be reevaluating our approach to overthrowing governments. We screwed up with Iran and Iraq; let's try not to screw up again going forward (maybe we should be asking about the escalation of US military activity in South America).

That is complete nonsense. I know you are probably just a troll with a remarkably low UID, but here is a brief lesson on Iranian history for you:

In 1906, the Iranian people created a constitutional democracy. They chose to follow Islamic government style in this system, and wrote a constitution that declares Islam to be the state religion. They required the monarch to be a Muslim. In the years that followed, they amended their constitution so that Islamic clerics would review laws to ensure that no ha

The Muslim world needs to examine their own society, and come to a resolution concerning their own behavior.

The Islamic philospher Kahlil Gibran in the book "The Prophet" said the same thing in different words, but human nature is human nature and it's much easier to jihad flesh and blood infadels than it is to jihad your internal demons.

Islamic philosopher? Not quite. You need to do some more research. I've read all of his writings. Have you?

He was born to a Maronite Catholic family and was educated in Maronite schools. He was "influenced" by Islam, Sufism, Hinduism and by the Bahai Faith. It's true that both Christians and Muslims like him, but he was a Christian.

Well, it Iran's case. It probably didn't help that we overthrew their democratically elected government, stole their oil for decades with a puppet regime, and now are sending in computer malware to blow up their centrifuges and assassinating their nuclear scientists.

oh, that was all so long ago... only half of the Iranian's currently living there are old enough to remember those things. Maybe more would be alive if we hadnt propped up their neighbor who was happily killing them with our chemical weapons, but again, that is history now.

There are some time gaps in your story as well as some interesting events that took place. Could your post have been any more one-sided? For one thing, how exactly is it stealing when many nations worth of companies invested in their oil extraction infrastructure but some how not worth mentioning when the Iranians Nationalized assets that belonged to foreign corporations?

Yes, and being surprised at people being mildly annoyed when a foreign nation basically destroys their government structure is not one sided. I just want to make sure I understand your argument: it is ok to subvert democratically chosen government to uphold the profits of a corporation?

There is nothing you can do with someone who has sworn to kill you & tear up your home other than to stop them.

And yet you want "us" to apologize to them for preventing them from developing nuclear weapons? I'd say that preventing them from having a means of creating nuclear weapons is a pretty nice way of "stop[ping] them", compared to killing them all and tearing up their homes.

I don't advocate holocausts. I can, however, see taking out key nuclear facilities. It seems obvious that over the long term, the non-Muslim world stands a great chance of suffering higher costs dealing with the Iranian nukes than taking them out now.

There is never a clean solution when one country says blatantly and openly they will destroy another country or two or three.

It's all the same fucking god, dude. The god of the Bible. It's called God in your language, Deus in my language, and Allah in Arabic.
In the Day of Reckoning he'll call the leaders of the three religions and ask them:
"what the fuck was all that fuss about, shitheads? Did you bother to RTFM?"

The brave cyberwarriors of the theocracy can on one hand fight for the glory of their dogmatic institutions, while using the technology that the infidels invented, that they wouldn't even possess, without assembly in infidel lands.

How is God great when it is the godless who provides the tools used to prove God is great?

The Persians have a long history of trade with other nations and cultures, and the Iranians have not simply forgotten that history. Iran as it exists today is screwed up primarily because of the US and the UK overthrowing a democratically elected government that was trying to nationalize oil concerns, as well as the US backing the brutal dictatorship that followed that coup d'etat, and the US supplying weapons to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war. The Iranians did not wake up one day and decide they wanted

Go back to kuro5hin, moron. The current president of Iran was one of the students who took over the U.S. embassy in the revolution that overthrew the U.S.'s puppet ruler. The current Iranian leadership is in place just because they participated in that revolution. If you can argue with a straight face that their decisions today have "nothing" to do with that, then you're detached from reality. Do you think they're making decisions in a vacuum?

see, i worked at the wtc until 9/11/2001. bin laden bombed the wtc, i lost my job. my entire life is now defined by that event. so, what i just wrote is not my responsibility, it is the responsibility of bin laden and saudi arabia

i'm going to rise up politically and in the year 2040 i am going to violently suppress a revolution in the usa when i am in power. but again, not my fault, saudi arabia's fault, because of 9/11

I see how fucking stupid your ignorant bullshit sounds. I don't see how observing that the current state of the mideast is heavily dominated by its recent colonial history is somehow either dehumanizing or infantilizing to Iranians.

Talking about the chain of events and how earlier events trigger or motivate later events doesn't take away anyone's responsibility. Your bullshit does though: It says that America has no responsibility at all for Iranian hostility, which is both fucking incoherent and leaves

I really don't know how to express my disgust with what you said. You would absolve history's major actors of any responsibility for the shape of the world, as if they were bystanders. You act like yesterday and today are just accidental neighbours.

I guess in your justice system, the bank robbers do split the sentence.

hey you know what? i just found out your grandfather murdered someone. report yourself to closest prison to serve your punishment

YES, ASSHOLE: if the perpetators are dead, IT'S OVER

justice for stealing a loaf of bread is punishment. not eternal damnation. that same logic scales to all crimes. otherwise, you're stuck with the balkans in the 1990s, where croats and serbs are murdering each other from stupid shit that happened in the 1500s. this is the world you want? endless victimization and recrimination?

Your counterexamples make no fucking sense because, as I keep repeating but you're too fucking thick to understand, saying "the US bears some responsibility for the shape of things today" does NOT entail any less responsibility for the Iranians.

it's easy to say you are a victim, and blame all failings on some other person, time, or place. and take no responsibility for your own lot in life, even though that's the only way you ever win at anything

okay. so what does that mean about slavery. what does that mean about our nation's genocidal treatment of native americans?

but really it started before that. italy owes the world an apology for the brutal treatment the romans meted out on their neighbors. no wait, sorry, that's the greeks that owe reparations. no wait, the egyptians are to blame. i think modern iraq needs to apologize for the babylonians. iran too, for the brutal crimes of the sassanids

Surely this does in fact demonstrate that God is great indeed, if He can even guide the infidels to craft the weapons of their own doom, and then provide them just like that to the warriors of jihad - and often even for free! ~

No body hates anybody here. These are countries, not people. Countries don't actually have friends or enemies. Only interests.

If they want us to stop setting their stuff on fire, they need to align their interests with ours. Until then, we'll keep inching that armada we've got off their coast ever closer until either they take a shot at us or somebody sneezes and then the war starts.

We could give that neighbouring country chemical and biological weapons

citation needed

How about the Senate report on U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq [gulfwarvets.com], amongst whose findings is "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with "dual use" licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological, and missile- system programs, including:(6) chemical warfare agent precursors; chemical warfare agent production facility plans and technical drawings (provided as pesticide production facility plans); chemical warhead filling equipment; biological warfare related materials; missile fabrication equipment; and, missile-system guidance equipment"

With the endless parade of cash from Bernanke currently scheduled to the tune of $40 BILLION per month indefinitely, somehow, I think these poor abused banks will squeek through this. Hell.. they could buy every damn tech manufacturer then make them custom build giant golden cow shaped HFT machines the size of the statue of liberty and then still have enough bailout cash to fill every Olympic pool in the US with $100 bills.

Err, the $40B is the Fed buying T-bills, the only way that's helping the big banks is by causing the yield on those instruments to fall thus making other investments (like perhaps bonds issues through big banks) more attractive.

what is worse is that people are buying into it once again. the submittard is talking about emerging "evidence", then links to a wall of text with 100% speculation and no shred of evidence, emerging or emerged.

The US probably could not legally be a part of such "World Court" without violating the US Constitution. Certainly the only way it would ever remotely be constitutional is if it were a ratified treaty, approved by the legislature and signed by the executive branch. There is little chance of that happening, and probably for good reason. There is no reason that a government shouldn't be able to enter into negotiations to resolve disputes with other countries, and certainly other countries should be free to sanction any country they choose, but to have some third party enter two entire nations into binding and un-appealable agreements does not sound very smart. How can you say that any of the judges are unbiased or fair? Because I know no man or woman who is unbiased, and most are not fair.

And what force ensures that people hold up their end of the judgement? The UN? The UN wasn't set up in a way that instills faith in its abilities to end disputes, or to enforce judgements.

It would be a nice start even if said court didn't have any means to enforce the judgement, and they would not be binding on the countries. Even the mere existence of such a judgement can be a powerful propaganda piece in and of itself. Russian dissidents have been using ECHR that way for years with considerable success - Russia could technically withdraw from it and just ignore the judgments, but it would lose prestige by doing so.

A group of purported hackers in the Middle East has claimed credit for problems at the websites of both banks, citing the online video mocking the founder of Islam. One security source called that statement "a cover" for the Iranian government's operations... Also, one source suggested the attacks were in response to U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks.

... and of course, if an anonymous coward says it, it must be true!

A ["]conservative["] website, FreeBeacon.com, initially reported on the Pentagon analysis, quoting it as saying, “Iran’s cyber aggression should be viewed as a component, alongside efforts like support for terrorism, to the larger covert war Tehran is waging against the west.” U.S officials did not deny the FreeBeacon report when queried by NBC News.

Uh... it's not really 'aggression' when it's in response to a previous, unprovoked attack, is it? I think the phrase you're looking for is "the best defense is a good offense."

The former head of cyber-security for the White House testified Thursday that “we were waiting for something like this from Iran.”

So... US/Isreal invades Iranian territory, hacks their computers causing millions in physical damage to equipment, murders Iranian nationals within their own borders with drive-by bombings, sanctions, constant threats and saber-rattling... but Iran and their allies are the terrorists for allegedly perpetrating a DDoS attack on a couple outward-facing bank websites?

Yea, I think most bullies would, at some point, realize that at least one of the people they've fucked with will eventually retaliate.

It's a couple of Too Big To Fail banks. They aren't the most popular organizations just now. Is it a massive high-bandwidth DDOS? Or some Anonymous-esque probe? It may be Iran, I don't know, but lacking evidence, Iran wouldn't be my first choice of perpetrator for something like this.

Iran represents monetary ideas that show that modern societies can work without interest based banking.

Ha ha ha ha ha! You think their banks work without interest? Semantic horseshit. The Islamic religious fanatics in charge are STEEPED in semantic horseshit.

Islamic "non-interest" banks simply calculate what the interest would be, then adds it on to the loan as a fee. You pay the same amount, but it is added in as a lump sum fee. Instead of a $100,000 loan w/5% interest on a $100,000 house, they buy the house for $100,00 then resell it to you for $200,000 on term. That isn't sinful interest, it is a blessed fee. Bankers are still bankers. TANSTAAFL.

Oh, and wagering on horse races is illegal because gambling is a sin. Except in Iran. When you place a bet on the ponies at the track, you're given a minuscule percentage of ownership of the horse for the duration of the race. Because betting on a horse you OWN isn't a sin. Only betting on OTHER animals is. Semantics.

Guess how they handle the "sin" of prostitution? You know how Islam allows you to have up to 3 wives? Well, if you only have 1 or 2 you can pop into the brothel and have the cleric "marry" you to one of the girls for the duration -- a few minutes to a couple of hours. This way she isn't a prostitute but your wife, and thus it isn't a sin. Instant divorce when you're done. They make Las Vegas look like pikers.

So feel free to go on and on about how Islamic banks have the answer to "fractional reserve banking" and the evils of usury but when you're done, look at it again and you'll see it is the same old pig just with a different wig.

They want to push it far enough, there will be plenty of volunteers to enlist and take the fight to them, up close and personal. Don't think that being brown and Muslim means you're the only person to want to fight to the death to protect their culture.

They want to push it far enough, there will be plenty of volunteers to enlist and take the fight to them, up close and personal. Don't think that being brown and Muslim means you're the only person to want to fight to the death to protect their culture.

You are absolutely right, we (U.S.) would, with the right provocation, have not much problem going to war with Iran. Because, as George Carlin once said, "We're GOOD at it!" My worry for that part of the world is if Iran does one day manage to combine nucleur weapons with long range missiles, it's going to be "bad".

WWII, re: Pearl Harbor. Japan's leaders we're advised to "not wake the sleeping bear". Eventually, that worked out "bad". And I'm not trying to sound tough, or belligerent. There needs